She Lay Swiftly
by K. H. Kelsey
Summary: "When you have the weight of the world on your shoulders... your priorities change..." The world of Albion is still in shambles in the aftermath of the Crawler's terror, so is the heart of the Queen. Her dearest love is dead, her subjects are in a rage, and her young son is left to rule. Shall Albion ever be whole again? Or will its age of prosperity come to a bitter end...


"Be you men or hollow men?"

"What do you think?" my foot tapped the ground gingerly. As payback for my inability to wait, the ground simply let my leather covered extremity slip deep into the moist folds of otid soil that rest beneath it. "Disgusting..." I muttered as I drew my foot forth from the squalid earth.

"Sorry yer majesty; ground's been pretty slick and mushy ever since ya turned mourninwood into a sewer. Where's Sir Walter?"

"Deceased, along with two and a half million civilians and countless soldiers. You are lucky to not be with the dead. Also, do not call me 'majesty', 'queen', not even 'princess' for I have ceded all the royal titles to my young son...he is the king of Albion now."

"Wot does that make ya?"

"A runaway now let me in before the damned get me."

"Open the gates...we got a...um...runaway!"

The shabbily constructed gates of the Mourningwood fort opened with a familiar somber sounding creak, a million moments all came rushing at me. The gate was a levy on my past's shore that needed to be broken, I knew that, but the memories were all so terrible. Shattering bones, screams, stormy clouds of gunpowder cloaking weary, fearful eyes...it was all flooding my mind.

"Hey, what are you doing 'ere? Thought I told you… you weren't welcome around 'ere anymore...," a sandy blond clad in a worn out red uniform embroidered with gold charged at me with a bonesmasher pistol out of its holster and ready to bring the cruelest revenge to its target.

"Shut up..."

"No way in 'ell will I shut up!" as I expected he held the pistol to my chest. He knew I could survive the shot, he knew I could blow him away with the flick of a finger, a major in the army and still a complete fool.

"Ben, hear me out. Please, be civil."

"Civil? Civil?! You're the one who needs to be civil! You wrecked the lives of the minorities just so the majority could live. When presented with the option to turn mournin'wood into a dumpin place you gave it no thought, but as soon as they brought up turnin Millfields into a mine for a great profit, one far greater than the one given from mournin'wood, you did the 'greater good' and denied the proposal. All you wanted was to have the wealthy on your side and now in the aftermath when you have all that power and prestige you run away. You make me sick..."

"When you have the weight of the world on your shoulders your priorities change..."

"Apparently so do your loyalties!" He barked at me. Phlegm flying from his mouth hit my scarred cheek.

"Ben!" I laid one cold hand upon his shoulder and grasped it hard, "I regret everything I've done, honest! Just please let me stay here for a couple weeks or so, or at least till most of the population forgets about me...then I'll be gone forever." My heated breath hung as a cloud in the eerily frigid air, silence ensued.

"No way in 'ell will I let..."

"BEN! HOLLOW MEN!" with the whooshes of the pale blue wisps surging into the fort's earthen floor another memory came back, one of a certain mustachioed major welcoming me into the fort.

"Oh bloody 'ell!" He slid his pistol back in its holster and took his rifle off his back and readied it to fire. I remember the first battle against the hollow men I endured. Waves upon waves came through the gates and soaring over the walls to slash us and hack at us with their machetes and shoot us with their primitive rifles aged by years six feet under alongside rotting flesh…it was horrifying. The familiar smell of gunpowder took to the air as seven rifles and a few scattered pistols fired. Guns belonging to both sides, both men and undead groaned and collapsed riddled with bullet holes. Only the bodies of the men remained as the undead corpses sank once again underneath the soil.

"Ben! BEN! Look out!" I shouted across the noisy battlefield as a spell of ice I cast busied the hollow men I was dealing with. A hollow man was directly behind him raising its aged blade to strike a blow to his head.

"What?" Ben cupped his hand about his ear and turned to face me as to hear me better. His face contorted into an expression of confusion in response to my expression of horror. As he turned to face me the hollow man's sword came into contact with his shoulder, hacking a deep cut into his flesh and bone. Ben grunted and groaned in pain, but took the butt of his gun and rammed it into the hollow man's skull in retaliation. More sounds of groans and gunfire filled the air. The next thing to sound out was an agonizingly loud scream from a couple yards away, a hollow man had completely hacked a soldier to pieces and gore was strewn about the place in which he was dismembered. Blood was everywhere, spattered on the aching stone walls, licking at the heels of soldiers as they danced with the dead across the battlefield, and dripping from wounds in many a soldier's body. Suddenly time froze and a portal opened up in the middle of the battlefield.

"Theresa?" I called out uncertainly. No response. Heated uneasiness took to the air and created a rather uncomfortable feeling around me. I should have been feeling happy about the manifestation of the gateway, but this time something was different. Something sinister lurked about the circumference of the portal, tinting it a peculiar copper colour with wisps of black smoke spluttering from its edges as if the portal itself had fallen to the chains of the corrupt and ever evolving industry of Albion.

Walking through the portal, I found relief in the chill of travelling through space and time. That liberation from my unease ended abruptly when I tumbled out of the portal and onto the road to rule's final area, the grand staircase to the exit portal and for a split second I swear I saw Major Swift atop the staircase. Impossible, I thought. Shaking my head, I tried to clear it of the post-portal, haze induced illusion. Sure enough it disappeared as soon as I had shut my eyes to shake my head and when I opened them I did not see Swift to my delight and dismay. I began to wonder as to why the portal had even appeared…maybe it was just an accident. Even seers make mistakes sometimes. I walked up the staircase and was about to go through another corrupted portal when I noticed a roll of parchment enclosed in the stone hand of my father's statue.

"What the…"

Moving closer to the right side of the portal I reached for the parchment, but couldn't quite prize it away from the statue. It was frustrating; I hopped on the balcony ledge that separated me from falling four meters and reached even further.

"Almost got it…"

I fell. A four meter drop is nothing for a hero, but it still hurt! I landed on my bum in the garden below amidst the autumn leaves. Feeling embarrassed, I got up and brushed the foliage off of myself and I decided to try a new way of acquiring the parchment. I cast a small wind spell in the general direction of the parchment. No success, "AGH!" I cast an even larger gust. It still did not budge a single centimeter.

"THIS IS SO IRRITATING!" I shrieked like a banshee as orbs of angry flames curled up in my hands. Before I could gain control of myself the orbs of flame flew from my hands and hit the hand of my father's statue, the one with the parchment enclosed in it! "For the sake of monks…" I watched in silence as the parchment burned into a fine gray ash and all of it fell in a packed in, petite pile at the statue's feet. Walking over in a bit of a stupor, my mind initiated thoughts of how stupid and rash I could be. I touched the ash and let it run through my fingers. With a sudden glow about it I saw the scroll begin to form once again.

As soon as the scroll had formed again I broke the wax seal upon it and began to read out loud to myself, "'Sorry for the inconvenience of acquiring this scroll my dear Queen. I knew that any old gust of wind could knock it down so I borrowed a book entitled the Normanomicon and enchanted it so that only fire could get it down. Also, here's the best part, it was also enchanted so that only the touch of a hero could get it to form again! I told you I'm getting good at this magic stuff! Anyways, I've discovered something great that could cause quite a bit of political controversy if the public were to discover this. Major Swift was not executed on the palace steps, in fact that was another criminal disguised. Major Swift was taken to the Temple of Shadows and the head of the temple, Lesley, was ordered by Logan to flay him alive and eat him. A horrible fate, I know…but here is the good news. I have found his ghost wandering the halls in the temple! Come quickly, he may not be here long. With love, Sir Walter Beck," I began to feel a sob catch in my throat. Swift, my favorite soldier, executed so gruesomely. I had no time to lose. I tucked the parchment in my boots and ran for the exit.

Rapidly, I found myself thrown back into the real world; I was immerged in the heated battle alongside men that once respected me. I pondered if I could, or should, sneak away past everyone so I could get to the Dark Temple as quick as I could. It's not like I hadn't snuck away from battle before, the hollowmen weren't my problem anyways. Darting up the steps, I made my way to the upper part of the fortress and bounded over the wall by the mortar to get to the empty field, all the hollowmen were too occupied with soldiers to spot me slinking away. I sped to the temple; it was only around 4 or 5 meters away and started to feel that surge of hope go through me.

Before too long I came upon the steps of the temple. I took my pistol from its holster and loaded it. Even though I had a pretty good alliance with the nobles aligned to the temple it was still pretty risky going in there. Now as a runaway they might turn their backs on me or, if I turn my back to them, tie me up and eat me. I stepped into the temple holding the gun out in front of me, I expected to see the main chamber full of nobles in masks and gloves, but there wasn't a single person there.

"Hello?" I called out unsurely, "Lesley? Walter?...Swift?"

"Hello my liege," a deep voice loomed behind me.

"Lesley, it's nice to see you again. Glad to see you don't have blood on your robes…eased up on human sacrifice?"

"You've eliminated the herd…," he muttered, glaring at me with ice cold eyes.

"Well, I'm sorry Lesley, but the mourningwood population was the smallest in all of Albion. It was optimal to dump the Bowerstone waste there," I sighed. I should've expected this reaction from him.

"You got rid of the source of food for us. You turned against us. You contaminated the herd and let them die off…,"

"I've turned against a lot of people Lesley. The point is I need the key to the rooms in the temple," I hated arguing with nobles. It was like talking to a brick wall or talking to a window. You either got nothing but stubborn rebuttals or everything you said would go right through their sugar plum filled heads.

"You shall receive nothing unless you have flesh to offer us…,"

"Us? If you haven't noticed Lesley, you are the only one left,"

"I guess I am…well, will you join me dear Queen for a final meal? I am quite starved…," I saw his demeanor change. He slipped his right hand into the deep pocket of his robes and held out his left hand to me, "Come with me my dear…"

"As long as you give me the key afterwards…," I took his hand. Before we had even taken three paces he produced a silver knife and pushed me up against the cold, stone, bloodstained wall.

"Foolish…you are so foolish!" He cackled.

"Lesley, I don't want to hurt you…," Lesley's laughter became more and more maniacal, till he began to choke, "Lesley, are you okay?" his knife fell away from my neck and he collapsed gasping for air and writhing. Soon it had all stopped and he lay there still as a stone.

"Vanessa!" a voice boomed.

"Walter?" I turned around. "Walter! Oh Walter it's so nice to see you."

"I've been watching the damn sod since my death looking for a reason to kill him, don't want to kill without one. So I figured killing him was justified if he was attacking the Queen of Albion," He laughed heartily.

"Walter, thing is, I'm no longer Queen. I've ceded all titles to my son."

"Oh…oh my."

"I know. It's insane, but…I'll explain everything later. We need to get back to Page's old headquarters. Is Swift still here?" I asked.

"Old headquarters? Guess you do have quite a bit of explaining to do… SWIFT!" Walter called out loudly for him. There was Major Swift…my major, descending the stone staircase from the upper level of the temple.

"Swift…you're ALIVE!" I felt tears well up in my eyes.

"Vanessa…I had to stay in hiding, I couldn't tell you of my location at all. Not even whether I was alive or dead. Right when the guards got to the temple I managed to get free of their grasp. I executed them quickly thereafter…," His eyes were swelling with happiness. He embraced me, pulling me tight to his body. I wrapped my arms around his neck and held on tight. I wanted to never let go, but a cough from Walter signified now was not the time.

"Vanessa, we need to return to the fort. I heard there's a battle roaring there," I felt guilt surge through me as Sir Walter spoke. I knew I had left them in a pretty critical state, many soldiers were lying dead and Ben was left facing a huge horde of the hollowmen. I sighed.

"Alright then, let's go."


End file.
